SIOBHAN MCKENNA

Siobhan McKenna (1923-1986) was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and made her debut at the An Taibhdhearc Theatre in a Gaelic language play in 1940. But it was her role as Pegeen Mike in The Playboy of the Western World at the Edinburgh Festival in 1951 which brought her international fame. It was a role she was to play many times on stage during her life. She was renowned for playing intensely dramatic and impassioned women and was a famous St. Joan (in Bernard Shaw’s play of that name) in London in 1954. She subsequently played the part on Broadway. She appeared in a number of Hollywood films, most notably in King of Kings and Dr. Zhivago. She died at the early age of 63 in 1986.